Courtesy of Judith Gregg Librarian Catherine Arbogast heads out with a personalized book delivery from the Los Altos main library.

Love of learning and curiosity about the world sometimes grow only more urgent as a person spends more and more time at home, limited by age, health condition, or both. Librarians head out from the Los Altos main l...

Already known as an innovator in the tech field, Google Inc. is now moving in on the art world.

The Mountain View-based company July 11 launched the “Paint the Town” contest, a “moving art experiment” that invites California residents over the age of 13 to submit physical or digital artwork that would decorate the door...

Traci Newell/Town Crier The six-week, tuition-free Stretch to Kindergarten program, hosted at Bullis Charter School, serves children who have not attended preschool. A teacher leads children in singing about the parts of a butterfly, above.

courtesy of Rishi Bommannan Rishi Bommannan cycled from Bates College in Maine to his home in Los Altos Hills, taking several selfies along the way. He also raised nearly $13,000 for the Livestrong Foundation, which supports cancer patients.

The Town Crier’s recent article on coyotes venturing down from the foothills in search of sustenance referenced the organization Project Coyote (“Recent coyote attacks keep residents on edge,” July 1). Do not waste your time contac...

Photos by Alicia Castro/Town Crier Local residents participate in an exercise class at the Grant Park Senior Center, above. Betsy Reeves, below left with Gail Enenstein, lobbied for senior programming in south Los Altos.

Grace Wilson Franks, our beloved mother and grandmother, left us peacefully on July 16, 2015 just a few weeks short of her 92nd birthday. She was born to Ross and Florence (Cruzan) Wilson in rural Tulare, California on Septem...

Most of us have a place inside our hearts and minds that occasionally causes us trouble. For some, it is sadness, depression or despair. For others, it may be fear, anger, resentment or myriad other emotional “dark places” that at times seem to hij...

Thumbs-up: To the David and Lucile Packard Foundation for putting its money where its philosophy is. A longtime proponent of conservation and sustainability, the foundation spared no expense in building its new Los Altos headquarters at 343 Second St. As celebrated during last week’s open house, the Los Altos site is the largest building in the world to receive Net Zero Energy Building Certification. That means its functions, from solar panels to recycled water, essentially result in zero energy consumption. The building is so efficient that it actually returns unused electricity to the power grid. We appreciate the foundation’s efforts in leading by example.

Thumbs-up: To the Los Altos City Council’s decision to move forward last month with a comprehensive, goal-oriented Climate Action Plan. The plan has a goal of reducing overall greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Councilwoman Megan Satterlee asked, justifiably, whether the goals were realistic given the city’s staffing shortages, which leave the city behind on numerous projects. However, having a plan with specific goals is better than having no plan at all. So the council made the right (and unanimous) decision to adopt the plan.

Thumbs-down: To recent misfortunes that have left the Los Altos-based Peninsula Symphony broke. An investigation into the nonprofit organization’s missing $500,000 is underway, so we don’t yet know how this came to be. But we do know that one of the key jobs of a board of directors of any organization is to have a firm handle on finances and strong oversight so that no one person, even a trusted executive director, has exclusive knowledge of the accounts. Apparently, the symphony board did not have a strong enough system in place.

Questionable thumbs: To the recently installed art project at the intersection of State and Fourth streets in downtown Los Altos. The project comprises a series of triangles in various colors, spray-painted atop the asphalt and even some of the grass at Community Plaza. The work previews a slew of upcoming “Project Los Altos” events planned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. So what is it? Helipad? Traffic-calming device? Traffic hazard? Art that motorists can add to by riding over it with tire tracks? One thing’s for sure: It has people talking.

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